Voting devices focus of ads;
Critics claim PR campaign is meant to shift attention from new machines'
flaws; $1 million outreach program; Officials say voters need to
get used to terminals
By Stephanie Desmon, Baltimore Sun
February 23, 2004
There are ads for them on the sides of buses, on billboards, on
the radio and on television. There's a Web site devoted to them.
There will be hundreds more get-to-know-you events around the state
where they'll be on display for the curious.
The public relations blitz -- in full swing -- is designed to familiarize
voters with the new electronic voting machines being unveiled across
Maryland in time for next month's presidential primary.
Some critics of the machines, however, say the campaign amounts
to a state-funded, unfiltered rebuttal to the bad press Ohio-based
Diebold Election Systems has earned in recent months as computer
experts have publicly criticized the company for its lax security.
They have warned that the system should not be used if voters want
election results they can trust.
The $1 million, five-year voter outreach program, as officials
are calling it -- part of the $55 million the state is paying Diebold
for 16,000 of the ATM-like devices -- is meant to be a formal introduction
to the new product and to Diebold.
"We need to let our voters know how to use the system, and
it becomes a much smoother system on Election Day if they've seen
it," said Nikki B. Trella, election reform director for the
State Board of Elections.
But critics are troubled.
"I think the money would be better spent making the system
more secure instead of trying to win voter confidence through public
relations and not necessarily through anything substantive,"
said Avi Rubin, the associate computer science professor at the
Johns Hopkins University and a critic of the Diebold machines.
"This idea of a public relations campaign is showing the superficiality
of their approach. They're trying to [sway] public opinion the way
Coca-Cola convinces people that it's a good soft drink."
Officials with the company and the state say the campaign is hardly
intended to be advertising for Diebold and its products.
Regardless of which vendor got the lucrative Maryland contract,
company and state officials said, the Help America Vote Act, which
Congress passed in 2002, has provisions requiring extensive voter
education.
The machines have withstood scrutiny in recent months, stemming
from Rubin's report last summer that outlined a series of security
problems with the Diebold machines. That report was followed up
with two state-commissioned studies that found many of the same
problems, including one recently done for the legislature that recommended
a series of fixes before the March 2 primary and November general
election.
Bill on paper trail
Meanwhile, there is a bill before a General Assembly committee,
which would require the addition of an auditable paper trail to
the electronic voting machines. Proponents say the machines can't
be trusted unless voters can see and approve a paper receipt of
their votes before leaving the polling place -- something the state's
machines are not equipped to do. California will be requiring the
paper, which would be used in the case of a recount, and other states
are considering similar measures.
David K. Bear, a spokesman for Diebold, bristles at the suggestion
that the company is using the airtime and other marketing materials
to answer its critics. The outreach program was in the works before
the negative attention began, he said.
"It isn't talking about the complaints, per se. It's talking
about the equipment and the use of the equipment," he said.
"You may not change people's opinions about electronic voting,
but it familiarizes them [with it]. People question when they're
not familiar with things. That's why you need to educate people."
More than 1.5 million pamphlets and brochures have been printed.
Hundreds of commercials are scheduled to be shown on local cable
channels between now and the general election in November; some
note the machines' advantages over the punch cards and their chads
that played such a critical role in the 2000 presidential race in
Florida.
Billboards -- like one in Upper Marlboro that reads "It's
here. Maryland's better way to vote." -- have been placed in
44 sites across the state. There have been 172 events in the community,
like one this month at area Giant grocery stores where voters had
the chance to test the machines, and there will be 500 more coming
in senior centers and rotary clubs and churches statewide. Many
of those who have used the machines praise them for how easy they
are to use. They said the method would allow the disabled, who previously
had to be assisted with other voting methods, to have a secret ballot.
Several elections officials across the state said they hope every
voter who wants to try the machine gets the opportunity before Election
Day.
'A boondoggle'
But opponents of the new machines -- in many cases the loudest
voices in favor of the paper trail -- are uncomfortable with what
they are seeing on television and on the sides of buses.
"I can understand there being a desire to get voters familiar
with itúbut taxpayers are now subsidizing a campaign to increase
their comfort level with a boondoggle," said Linda Schade,
a Takoma Park resident who has worked to organize a campaign against
the touch-screen voting machines. "Taxpayers are funding a
corporate advertising campaign and that's an outrage."
Copyright 2004, The Balimore Sun
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